W&m Officials Investigate Charge Of Sexual Assault

September 12, 2003|By PATTI ROSENBERG Daily Press

WILLIAMSBURG — A 16-year-old Middle Peninsula girl says a College of William and Mary student raped her at a fraternity party Saturday night.

While the city prosecutor is preparing to take the case to a grand jury, the college's president has asked for an internal review of social functions and alcohol on the campus. President Timothy Sullivan, addressing the W&M Board of Visitors Thursday, said he expects the results of the report by Oct. 1, and pledged that the college would do whatever it can to restore and protect the integrity of the Williamsburg community.

"If this is true, this is a tragedy," Sullivan said. "This is a tragedy for the victim ... it's a tragedy for this community."

Campus police were notified about the incident early Sunday, when they were called to Riverside Walter Reed Hospital in Gloucester, where the girl had gone for treatment, according to a police officer's sworn statement.

The statement says the girl told police she attended a party at Lambda Chi Alpha on Saturday night, where she danced with a student and was then invited upstairs for a drink by a female friend of her dance partner.

After drinking a shot of rum, she accepted an invitation to go to the male student's room, the girl told police. As soon as they arrived, he closed the door, pushed her onto a couch, tried to kiss her and started yanking at her clothing.

Although she repeatedly said "no" and was crying, he held her down, put a condom on and had sex with her, the statement says. It says the girl said she continued to struggle and tried to get away.

At some point, he made a comment that the condom had broken, the warrant says. She yelled, "stop," and he stopped and sat up, giving her an opportunity to get away. She dressed quickly and ran, the statement says.

A student who works in the fraternity complex saw the girl minutes later and confirmed that she was in a state of "mental and physical distress," the police statement says. It says the girl told the worker that she had been raped.

No charges have been filed, but the investigation is continuing, said Williamsburg-James City County Commonwealth's Attorney Mike McGinty. He said he asked William and Mary officials to delay releasing information about the incident to give police a chance to investigate.

But word was quickly spreading across campus, McGinty said, and college officials realized the media would find the search warrant filed at the courthouse Thursday.

"William and Mary was prepared to go forward with their internal disciplinary system and take other appropriate actions," McGinty said Thursday in a written statement.

"College officials have responded, as I would have expected them to respond, by keeping first and foremost in their minds concern for the alleged victim and her family and their desire to see justice done."

College officials have been criticized in the past for not aggressively investigating sexual assaults on the campus and for using the college's disciplinary system instead of the criminal system to punish the students involved. The school also has tried several times to institute controls to limit drinking at parties and other social events on the campus.

The college's board, which meets only a few times a year, was holding its regularly scheduled meeting on campus Thursday and went into a closed session on a "student disciplinary matter" for more than an hour to discuss the most recent incident.

Sullivan then announced that he'd asked Vice President for Student Affairs Sam Sadler to lead a task force to look into social functions on campus and the serving of alcohol.

"The college has treated this matter with the utmost seriousness," Sullivan said.

Staff writer Brian Whitson contributed to this report.

Patti Rosenberg can be reached at 223-5686 or by e-mail at prosenberg@dailypress.com